zaterdag 8 november 2014

In de inleiding van zijn boek Pay Any Price. Greed, Power, And Endless War (2014) schrijft de gezaghebbende Amerikaanse onderzoeksjournalist van de New York Times, James Risen, dat 'Obama's great achievement — or great sin — was to make the national security state permanent.' Het gevolg is dat

America has become accustomed to a permanent state of war. Only a small slice of society — including many poor and rural teenagers — fight and die, while a permanent national security elite rotates among senior governments posts, contracting companies, think tanks, and television commentary, opportunities that would disappear if America was suddenly at peace. To most of America, war had become not only tolerable but profitable, and so there is no longer any great incentive to end it.

Thus, the creation of a homeland security complex at a time of endless war has bequeathed us with the central narrative of the war on terror — modern tales of greed joined hand in hand with stories of abuse of power. It was inevitable that those wise in the ways of the world would flock to Washington to try to cash in on the war on terror gold rush — and they have.

James Risen wijst in dit verband er op dat

Opportunism comes in many forms and is driven by more than just greed. Ambition and a hunger for power, status, and glory have become great engines of post-9/11 opportunism as well. The more troubling stories here concern abuses of power that have extended across two presidencies for well over a decade. After 9/11, the United States deregulated national security, stripping away the post-Watergate intelligence reforms of the 1970s that had constrained executive power for thirty years. The results are morally challenging — and continue to this day.

Obama's great achievement — or great sin — was to make the national security state permanent.

Half a century earlier, President Dwight Eisenhower had warned of a new 'military-industrial complex'; under Bush and Obama, a parallel 'homeland security-industrial complex has been born. The rise of the military-industrial complex had been fueled by fears of Communism. Now, another abstract fear was driving hundreds of billions of dollars a year into building the infrastructure necessary to wage a permanent war on terror, and it had grown like kudzu (een woekerende klimplant. svh) around the CIA, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Treasury Department, Pentagon, and dozens of other smaller offices and federal agencies. The post-9/11 panic led Congress to throw cash at counterterrorism faster than the FBI, CIA, and other agencies were able to spend it. One 2012 estimate concluded that the decade of war had cost Americans nearly $4 trillion.

In contrast to the standard conception of the media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and their independence of authority, we have spelled out and applied a propaganda model that indeed sees the media as serving a 'societal purpose,' but not that of enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process by providing them with the information needed for the intelligent discharge of political responsibilities. On the contrary, a propaganda model suggests that the 'societal purpose' of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises,

As we have stressed throughout this book, the U.S. media do not function in the manner of the propaganda system of a totalitarian state. Rather, they permit -- indeed, encourage -- spirited debate, criticism, and dissent, as long as these remain faithfully within the system of presuppositions and principles that constitute an elite consensus, a system so powerful as to be internalized largely without awareness. No one instructed the media to focus on Cambodia and ignore East Timor. They gravitated naturally to the Khmer Rouge and discussed them freely -- just as they naturally suppressed information on Indonesian atrocities in East Timor and U.S. responsibility for the aggression and massacres. In the process, the media provided neither facts nor analyses that would have enabled the public to understand the issues or the bases of government policies toward Cambodia and Timor, and they thereby assured that the public could not exert any meaningful influence on the decisions that were made. This is quite typical of the actual 'societal purpose' of the media on matters that are of significance for established power; not 'enabling the public to assert meaningful control over the political process,' but rather averting any such danger. In these cases, as in numerous others, the public was managed and mobilized from above, by means of the media's highly selective messages and evasions. As noted by media analyst W. Lance Bennett: 'the public is exposed to powerful persuasive messages from above and is unable to communicate meaningfully through the media in response to the messages... Leaders have usurped enormous amounts of political power and reduced popular control over the political system by using the media to generate support, compliance, and just plain confusion among the public.'

En:

Given the imperatives of corporate organization and the workings of the various filters, conformity to the needs and interests of privileged sectors is essential to succes. In the media, as in other major institutions, those who do not display the requisite values and perspectives will be regarded as 'irresponsible,' 'ideological,' or otherwise aberrant, and will tend to fall by the wayside. While there may be a small number of exceptions, the pattern is pervasive, and expected. Those who adapt, perhaps quite honestly, will then be free to express themselves with little managerial control, and they will be able to assert, accurately, that they perceive no pressures to conform. The media are indeed free -- for those who adopt the principles required for 'societal purpose.'

The technical structure of the media virtually compels adherence to conventional thoughts; nothing else can be expressed between two commercials, or in seven hundred words, without the appearance of absurdity that is difficult to avoid when one is challenging familiar doctrine with no opportunity to develop facts or argument... The critic must also be prepared to face a defamation apparatus against which there is little recourse, an inhibiting factor that is not insubstantial... The result is a powerful system of induced conformity to the needs of privilege and power. In sum, the mass media of the United States are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without significant overt coercion. This propaganda system has become even more efficient in recent decades with the rise of the national television networks, greater mass-media concentration, right-wing pressures on public radio and television, and the growth in scope and sophistication of public relations and news management.

Onder de kop The New York Times Versus The Civil Society schreef Edward S. Herman een vernietigend artikel over 's werelds invloedrijkste krant.

The veteran New YorkTimes reporter John Hess has said that in all 24 years of his service at the paper he 'never saw a foreign intervention that the Times did not support, never saw a fare increase or a rent increase or a utility rate increase that it did not endorse, never saw it take the side of labor in a strike or lockout, or advocate a raise for underpaid workers. And don’t let me get started on universal health care and Social Security. So why do people think the Times is liberal?' The paper is an establishment institution and serves establishment ends. As Times historian Harrison Salisbury said about former executive editor Max Frankel, 'The last thing that would have entered his mind would be to hassle the American Establishment, of which he was so proud to be a part.'

On August 24 2006 the New York Times declared this in an editorial: 'If we had known then what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular outcry.' This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging them and exposing them. What the Times didn’t say was that had that paper and the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive today. That’s the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists. Few of them—they’ve spoken to me about it—few of them will say it in public.

Face it, America. You are a corporate-controlled country with the symbols of democracy in the constitution and statutes just that-symbols of what the founding fathers believed or hoped would be reality.

an Iraqi taxi driver may have been the source of the discredited claim that Saddam Hussein could unleash weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, a Tory MP claimed today.

Adam Holloway, a defense specialist, said MI6 obtained information indirectly from a taxi driver who had overheard two Iraqi military commanders talking about Saddam's weapons.

The 45-minute claim was a key feature of the dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that was released by Tony Blair in September 2002. Blair published the information to bolster public support for war.

Nothing threatens democracy as much as corporate power. Nowhere do corporations operate with greater freedom than between nations, for here there is no competition. With the exception of the European parliament, there is no transnational democracy, anywhere. All other supranational bodies – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations, trade organizations and the rest – work on the principle of photocopy democracy (presumed consent is transferred, copy by copy, to ever-greyer and more remote institutions) or no democracy at all.

When everything has been globalized except our consent, corporations fill the void. In a system that governments have shown no interest in reforming, global power is often scarcely distinguishable from corporate power. It is exercised through backroom deals between bureaucrats and lobbyists.

This is how negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) began. The TTIP is a proposed single market between the United States and the European Union, described as 'the biggest trade deal in the world.' Corporate lobbyists secretly boasted that they would 'essentially co-write regulation.' But, after some of their plans were leaked and people responded with outrage, democracy campaigners have begun to extract a few concessions. The talks have just resumed, and there's a sense that we cannot remain shut out.

This trade deal has little to do with removing trade taxes (tariffs). As the EU's chief negotiator says, about 80% of it involves 'discussions on regulations which protect people from risks to their health, safety, environment, financial and data security.' Discussions on regulations means aligning the rules in the EU with those in the US. But Karel De Gucht, the European trade commissioner, maintains that European standards 'are not up for negotiation. There is no "give and take."' An international treaty without give and take? That is a novel concept. A treaty with the US without negotiation? That's not just novel, that's nuts.

You cannot align regulations on both sides of the Atlantic without negotiation. The idea that the rules governing the relationship between business, citizens and the natural world will be negotiated upwards, ensuring that the strongest protections anywhere in the trading bloc will be applied universally, is simply not credible when governments on both sides of the Atlantic have promised to shred what they dismissively call red tape. There will be negotiation. There will be give and take. The result is that regulations are likely to be levelled down. To believe otherwise is to live in fairyland.

Last month, the Financial Times reported that the US is using these negotiations 'to push for a fundamental change in the way business regulations are drafted in the EU to allow business groups greater input earlier in the process.' At first, De Gucht said that this was 'impossible.' Then he said he is 'ready to work in that direction.' So much for no give and take.

But this is not all that democracy must give so that corporations can take. The most dangerous aspect of the talks is the insistence on both sides on a mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). ISDS allows corporations to sue governments at offshore arbitration panels of corporate lawyers, bypassing domestic courts. Inserted into other trade treaties, it has been used by big business to strike down laws that impinge on its profits: the plain packaging of cigarettes; tougher financial rules; stronger standards on water pollution and public health; attempts to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Nothing threatens democracy as much as corporate power. Nowhere do corporations operate with greater freedom than between nations, for here there is no competition. With the exception of the European parliament, there is no transnational democracy, anywhere. All other supranational bodies – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the United Nations, trade organisations and the rest – work on the principle of photocopy democracy (presumed consent is transferred, copy by copy, to ever-greyer and more remote institutions) or no democracy at all.

When everything has been globalised except our consent, corporations fill the void. In a system that governments have shown no interest in reforming, global power is often scarcely distinguishable from corporate power. It is exercised through backroom deals between bureaucrats and lobbyists.

This is how negotiations over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) began. The TTIP is a proposed single market between the United States and the European Union, described as "the biggest trade deal in the world". Corporate lobbyists secretly boasted that they would "essentially co-write regulation". But, after some of their plans were leaked and people responded with outrage, democracy campaigners have begun to extract a few concessions. The talks have just resumed, and there's a sense that we cannot remain shut out.

This trade deal has little to do with removing trade taxes (tariffs). As the EU's chief negotiator says, about 80% of it involves "discussions on regulations which protect people from risks to their health, safety, environment, financial and data security". Discussions on regulations means aligning the rules in the EU with those in the US. But Karel De Gucht, the European trade commissioner, maintains that European standards "are not up for negotiation. There is no 'give and take'." An international treaty without give and take? That is a novel concept. A treaty with the US without negotiation? That's not just novel, that's nuts.

You cannot align regulations on both sides of the Atlantic without negotiation. The idea that the rules governing the relationship between business, citizens and the natural world will be negotiated upwards, ensuring that the strongest protections anywhere in the trading bloc will be applied universally, is simply not credible when governments on both sides of the Atlantic have promised to shred what they dismissively call red tape. There will be negotiation. There will be give and take. The result is that regulations are likely to be levelled down. To believe otherwise is to live in fairyland.

Last month, the Financial Times reported that the US is using these negotiations "to push for a fundamental change in the way business regulations are drafted in the EU to allow business groups greater input earlier in the process". At first, De Gucht said that this was "impossible". Then he said he is "ready to work in that direction". So much for no give and take.

But this is not all that democracy must give so that corporations can take. The most dangerous aspect of the talks is the insistence on both sides on a mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). ISDS allows corporations to sue governments at offshore arbitration panels of corporate lawyers, bypassing domestic courts. Inserted into other trade treaties, it has been used by big business to strike down laws that impinge on its profits: the plain packaging of cigarettes; tougher financial rules; stronger standards on water pollution and public health; attempts to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

At first, De Gucht told us there was nothing to see here. But in January the man who doesn't do give and take performed a handbrake turn and promised that there would be a three-month public consultation on ISDS, beginning in "early March". The transatlantic talks resumed on Monday. So far there's no sign of the consultation.

And still there remains that howling absence: a credible explanation of why ISDS is necessary. As Kenneth Clarke, the British minister promoting the TTIP, admits: "It was designed to support businesses investing in countries where the rule of law is unpredictable, to say the least." So what is it doing in a US-EU treaty? A report commissioned by the UK government found that ISDS "is highly unlikely to encourage investment" and is "likely to provide the UK with few or no benefits". But it could allow corporations on both sides of the ocean to sue the living daylights out of governments that stand in their way.

Unlike Karel De Gucht, I believe in give and take. So instead of rejecting the whole idea, here are some basic tests which would determine whether or not the negotiators give a fig about democracy.

First, all negotiating positions, on both sides, would be released to the public as soon as they are tabled. Then, instead of being treated like patronised morons, we could debate these positions and consider their impacts.

Second, every chapter of the agreement would be subject to a separate vote in the European parliament. At present the parliament will be invited only to adopt or reject the whole package: when faced with such complexity, that's a meaningless choice.

Third, the TTIP would contain a sunset clause. After five years it would be reconsidered. If it has failed to live up to its promise of enhanced economic performance, or if it reduces public safety or public welfare, it could then be scrapped. I accept that this would be almost unprecedented: most such treaties, unlike elected governments, are "valid indefinitely". How democratic does that sound?

So here's my challenge to Mr De Gucht and Mr Clarke and the others who want us to shut up and take our medicine: why not make these changes? If you reject them, how does that square with your claims about safeguarding democracy and the public interest? How about a little give and take?

On 7 October, the second round of negotiations for a far-reaching transatlantic trade deal will begin in Brussels. Amidst calls for greater openness and public participation, the European Commission has gone into propaganda mode, promoting myths about the transparency and accountability of the talks. See through its feel-good rhetoric with Corporate Europe Observatory’s myth-busting guide to secrecy, corporate influence and lack of accountability in the transatlantic trade negotiations.

SEPTEMBER 25 | CORPORATE EUROPE OBSERVATORY

Busting the myths of transparency around the EU-US trade deal

On 7 October, the second round of negotiations for a far-reaching transatlantic trade deal will begin in Brussels. Amidst calls for greater openness and public participation, the European Commission has gone into propaganda mode, promoting myths about the transparency and accountability of the talks. See through its feel-good rhetoric with Corporate Europe Observatory’s myth-busting guide to secrecy, corporate influence and lack of accountability in the transatlantic trade negotiations.

For many years, public interest groups have criticised EU trade policy for a lack of transparency, a severe democratic deficit and a rampant corporate bias (see, for example, here, here and here). The European Parliament rejected the infamous Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), with MEPs arguing, with justification, that law negotiated in secret is usually bad law. Now these same MEPs have called for more openness in the negotiations for the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). And digital rights activists have warned the European Commission that secrecy “could kill TTIP just as effectively as it killed ACTA”.

In response, the Commission has gone on a PR offensive. In a series of Q&A, briefing papers about transparency in EU trade negotiations and leaflets explaining why TTIP is not ACTA, the Commission’s trade department (DG Trade) is portraying itself as the model of transparency. “There is more interest in this potential deal than any we have worked on before,” they say, “We realise that this requires new initiatives to shed more light on what is going on throughout the negotiations.”

However these “new initiatives” of theirs cast more shadow than light. Let us guide you through some of the key myths about openness and accountability in DG Trade.

Myth 1: The EU is very open to a broad range of views when preparing for trade negotiations

Reality: The EU is very open to the interests of big business when preparing for trade negotiations

In its transparency factsheet, the Commission claims that “views of civil society play a crucial role” in EU trade negotiations and that it relies “on the information received from the public before the negotiations start” which reflects “a broad range of views”.

But while an internal Commission document obtained through the EU’s access to information rules shows that, to prepare the transatlantic trade negotiations, DG Trade has had at least 119 behind closed door meetings with large corporations and their lobby groups – it has had only a handful with trade unions and consumer groups. When negotiations were announced in February 2013, not a single such meeting with public interest groups had taken place – compared to dozens with business lobbyists (see our story on the issue).

Contributions to the EU’s online consultations, too, came almost exclusively from companies and industry associations. If you look at the biased questionnaire, this is not surprising. How would the average citizen respond to questions such as: “If you are concerned by barriers to investment, what are the estimated additional costs for your business (in percentage of the investment) resulting from the barriers?”

Experience with previous trade talks suggests that we will soon see more evidence of the privileged access and undue influence that the Commission grants industry over its discussions with the US (see our report Trade Invaders on the EU-India negotiations). Leaked internal reports seen by Corporate Europe Observatory already suggest that the Commission is in close contact with the “relevant” industry associations – and no-one else – “to get a feeling for their offensive interests” on issues such as services liberalisation. It is clear whose views really count.

Myth 2: The Commission provides the most comprehensive information possible

Reality: The Commission is concealing most information about the proposed trade deal from the public

The Commission claims that it “is committed to providing as much information as possible” about the ongoing negotiations to the public. It has even made “the unprecedented step of making available to the public a number of the EU's initial position papers” which it presented to the US in the first round of negotiations in Washington in July.

It is indeed encouraging that the Commission has finally started to publish some of its positions in trade negotiations. But unfortunately, these are very few in number. According to leaked internal reports about the first round of negotiations seen by Corporate Europe Observatory, many more issues than the ones on which papers have been published were being discussed in Washington, ranging from the liberalisation of services to the controversial issue of investor-state dispute settlement rights. For several of these issues, the Commission put discussion papers on the negotiating table which cannot be found on its website. Doesn’t the public have the right to know about these issues, too? What is the Commission hiding?

A letter to the US from the EU’s chief negotiator also shows that the Commission intends to conceal most information about the proposed trade deal from the public: “All documents related to the negotiation or development of the TTIP agreement, including negotiating texts, proposals of each side, accompanying explanatory material, discussion papers, emails related to the substance of the negotiations, and other information exchanged in the context of the negotiations (...) will be held in confidence.” And further: “The Commission may decide to make public certain documents that will reflect exclusively the EU position” (emphasis added).

“Without the text being publicly made available, it is almost impossible to provide appropriate feedback for the very proposals that will affect the general public the most. (…) The precise working of the provisions, references to other documents or international instruments, and cross-references throughout the text are vitally important to fully understanding the impacts of the agreement as a whole.”

Knowledge Ecology International in their contribution to the US consultation on TTIP

What is needed instead, are for all tabled documents and negotiation texts – which, by definition, are no longer secret – to be made available to the public immediately. Like previous trade agreements, the proposed EU-US deal has the potential to impact the lives of millions of people and the future of our democracy. Given this, it requires intensive public scrutiny and robust review – just like any European law which is published in different versions before it is adopted.

Reality: The proposed EU-US trade deal is hidden from the public, because if people understood its potential impacts, this could lead to widespread opposition to the negotiations

The European Commission’s guide to transparency in EU trade policy says: “For trade negotiations to work and succeed, you need a certain degree of confidentiality, otherwise it would be like showing the other player one’s cards in a card game.” And further, it is “entirely normal for trade negotiations” that the talks themselves and the texts discussed are secret – “to protect EU interests” and to guarantee a “climate of confidence” so that negotiators can “work together to come to the best deal possible.”

Interestingly, there are international (trade) negotiations where secrecy is not “entirely normal”. In the World Trade Organisation, for example, members (including the EU) publish their negotiation positions. The same goes for global climate negotiations in the UN where parties (again including the EU) do not seem to see opacity as a precondition for a successful agreement.

Even some trade negotiators disagree with the Commission’s stance on secrecy. Former US trade negotiator, Robert Zoellick, said of the lack of transparency in trade negotiations, that: “Frankly, that always surprised me”. According to him, draft trade texts were seen by hundreds of people anyway – government officials, advisors and lobbyists. So, why not simply put the information online? (See from minute 36:24 in this video from a public event in the US on June 19.)

So what is the secrecy really about? It is about hiding a deal from the public, which if its potential impacts were more well understood could lead to widespread public opposition – because it could endanger the safety of our food and our health, our jobs and our environment, the stability of financial markets and digital rights. And it is about securing “the best deal possible” for big businesses, not European or US people.

Myth 4: Negotiations are guided by independent impact studies

Reality: These allegedly independent studies were in fact written by the Commission and corporate funded think tanks with a vested interest in the proposed EU-US trade deal

Whenever the EU engages in trade negotiations, its transparency guide states, it “commissions an independent study to look at the economic, social and environmental impacts of any agreement”, the results of which feed into the negotiations. The key figure from the impact study of the proposed EU-US deal – according to which an average European household would gain an extra €545 per year – is all over the Commission’s TTIP propaganda.

Let us take a closer look at this “independent” study. Remarkably, it was written by the Commission itself, with DG Trade in the lead. So, the very same institution which conducts the negotiations and which academics have described as a bunch of “generally free-trade oriented career trade officials” has come up with a “study” supporting its agenda and is now calling it “independent”. No wonder, the European Parliament has already pointed to a number of methodological flaws in the impact assessment and is demanding its own analysis.

The Commission’s interpretation of the key economic study on which its impact assessment was based – and from which the claim of €545 extra per family originates – has also been criticised. In this eye-opening article, Clive George, a Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges who has conducted trade impact assessments for the European Commission in the past, writes: “Of the various scenarios examined in the study, the most optimistic produced the widely-quoted increase of €120 billion [to the EU economy]. This amounts to just 0.5% of EU GDP. It does not occur instantly, and it does not represent a boost to annual growth of 0.5% [...]. The EC’s study estimates that it would take ten years for the agreement to have full effect, during which period the impact on economic growth would not be 0.5%, but 0.05%, for ten years only. Furthermore, this is for the most optimistic of the study’s scenarios (or guesses) for what might actually be achieved in the negotiations. For its more realistic scenarios, the study estimates an increase in GDP of little more than 0.1%, i.e. an increase in the GDP growth rate of 0.01% for the ten year period. This is trivial, and the EC knows it.” The EU-US trade deal, George concludes “will deliver minimal economic benefit at best.”

“The ‘crimes’ committed under the label of ‘econometrics’ have as little to do with science as a weather forecast has to do with the giblets of a chlorinated chicken.”

Journalist Jens Berger on one of the many studies showing the benefits of TTIP

The original study debunked by Professor George was an “independent” report from the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). The CEPR is funded by some of the world’s largest banks which stand to benefit from the proposed transatlantic trade deal – including Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Santander, Barclays and JP Morgan. These companies pay between 6,000 and 20,000 Euros per year to fund the think tank, which, according to its website, in turn offers the well-paying members (“whose business success depends upon being at the forefront of Europe's economic policy formulation”) “an active influence on CEPR's research and policy direction”.

So much for "independent" impact assessments.

Myth 5: The Commission negotiates on behalf of the whole EU

Reality: The Commission negotiates on behalf of itself and transnational companies, but definitely not the whole EU, let alone its people

According to the Commission’s transparency guide, it negotiates international trade agreements “according to the instructions received from the Member States”. During negotiations, it claims, it “remains fully accountable to the European civil society, the Member States and the European Parliament that exercise democratic control.”

In fact, the balance of power between the Commission and EU member states is heavily tilted towards the Commission. It has greater capacity, technical expertise and the initiative in drawing up negotiation texts. EU member states need to act in large groups to significantly change Commission proposals. Also, it is reported that the Commission uses all kinds of tricks to circumvent member states’ objections. When the latter were confronted with leaked negotiation texts from the EU’s ongoing trade talks with Canada, for example, member state sources admitted that many had never seen the texts and that the Commission had gone way beyond its negotiation mandate.

Similarly, many MEPs in the European Parliament lack the capacity to properly analyse the piles of highly technical texts related to the EU’s globe-spanning trade agenda. According to a Parliament source, MEPs on the committee for international trade (INTA) receive between 500 and 1000 pages per week. The result, according to the source, is a “window-dressing openness” where “you receive 1000s of pages, but don’t know what is going on”.

“Europe’s trade policy (… is) run by a committee of unelected technocrats who believe in the good of trade liberalisation and who are largely insulated from political tensions and pressures.”

This is what democracy looks like

For a more democratic vision for European trade policy, take a look at the Alternative Trade Mandate Alliance, an alliance of currently almost 50 civil society groups (including Corporate Europe Observatory). We are developing an alternative vision of trade policy that puts people and planet before big business.

The heart of this vision is an assertion of democratic control over the EU’s trade policy (see the paper Is this what democracy looks like?). The alliance’s guiding principles in this should go without saying in any democracy: transparency and openness instead of secrecy; policy-making by elected Parliaments instead of unelected bureaucrats and peoples’ involvement instead of policy-capture by corporate lobby groups.

Putting these principles into practice, the alliance has published the draft version of its vision online – to gather public comments “to improve the Alternative Trade Mandate and make it a genuine people’s mandate”. Final comments are due by 4 October.

Based on the final version of the text, the Alternative Trade Mandate Alliance intends to mobilise the public all over Europe to transform EU trade policy. One of its key goals is to make trade negotiations such as the ones between the EU and the US an issue in the 2014 European elections.

The proposed EU-US trade agreement hands over more power to corporations and further undermines our democracy. Busting the myths surrounding it and revealing the truth about this secretive deal is an important step in people taking back control over the democratic process. How long will the public stand being fobbed off by the Commission’s propaganda?